


His Name is Hidden

by spire_cx



Category: Infinite (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-07
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-17 23:36:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/873202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spire_cx/pseuds/spire_cx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dongwoo is chosen to wash his Pharaoh's feet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Name is Hidden

**Author's Note:**

> this was very much inspired by Norman Mailer's _Ancient Evenings_. similarities are not a coincidence.

The sun is high, huge, and impossible over the city. Its light is in your bones, under your skin, in your blood. White, withering, pitiless: its majesty swallows the world and brings you low. It is the light of Amon-Ra and it knows every place as He knows every truth, as He whispers in our ears, as He moves in the cool air of dusk over the silent river.

Today is the first day of the second Festival of His Triumph, and you are holding a vessel of water. You have been holding it since dawn. Hours ago the water was cool but in the morning sun it has become tepid, and in your palms you can feel its new warmth through the rough clay of the pot. The priests have perfumed it with herbs, and the heat has made them fragrant, dizzying. The scent of anise and cinnamon and wilted roses swirls behind your eyes.

The air is soft and thick in your lungs. There is not a breath of wind in the crowded courtyard, and the blessing of Amon-Ra is heavy on your shoulders, a great burden. Your feet ache. Your arms shudder. Your body is weary and your mind is like the river: flat on the surface but tumultuous underneath, roiling with hazy, half-obscured emotion. Your soul is trembling with fear you cannot fully understand, fear that feels like the quivering of a thread pulled taut.

Sweat trickles down your chest, the milk of your exertion. But you remain rigid with resolve, betraying nothing.

Around you, the crowd is restless, murmuring, eager to see their God and King. The people of the city see Him often, but your home is far from here and it has been a decade since you last laid eyes upon Him at the first Festival of His Triumph. You were a boy then, unimportant and small, and glimpsed Him only from a great distance. You remember His hair red like clay, His shoulders narrow and lithe, His golden collar shining in the sun. Though He was but a small figure to you, far away, barely seen, you remember the way your knees went weak at the sight of Him; you remember the way your body felt empty and light.

You were only a boy then, unimportant and small. In the years that have passed since that day you have become a man, older and wiser. You have learned much, and known the taste of experience and success. You have earned the place of honor in which you are standing.

Yes, you think, you are a man today and no longer a child. But then there is a creak of hinges, and the far doors of the Throne Room open, and all at once those years of wisdom fall suddenly away. Your heart leaps into the air like birds taking flight. All the layers of time that you had wrapped around you are gone, sinking into muddied waters. The hair on the back of your neck stands up and in your excitement your sword stirs to life between your legs. The crowd gasps; you watch those standing across from you turn toward the doors. You do not look with them because you must remain vigilant, but you do not need to see to know what is there. Your hands go weak, your skin turns thin like the finest papyrus, and the water vessel suddenly feels ten times its weight.

The Pharaoh is before His people. You do not look but you know that He has emerged by the sounds of the crowd that lines His path. The women are sighing; the men are murmuring prayers.

"Oh," they cry, "Powerful are the Manifestations of Ra!"

You know the Great God is walking down the steps, between the two lines of guards whose skin has been painted blue and red. The air wavers with His presence and His footfalls rattle in your head. He is barefoot, as you have been told He would be, and can hear His feet slapping against the stones of the courtyard.

You stare straight ahead, holding the water vessel tight. Your heart has become a small withered thing, dry and fragile like a corpse left out in the desert. It is a scarab in your throat—you struggle to breathe around it, struggle to keep your body alive, even as you feel your blood pounding below your skin. You feel your Ka reaching toward the sky, struggling upward, outward.

At the bottom of the stairs He passes before the crowd of His many queens and their many children: they strew His path with flowers, laughing, shouting prayers and blessings. 

"Oh," they cry, "Beloved of Amon, Chosen of Ra, God-King of the Two Lands!"

You hear the smack of the bouquets falling in front of Him and go dizzy—the world becomes white, flashing white, and your head is filled with the buzzing of insects, like the locusts and flies over the floodplains as the river recedes.

His standard-bearers pass before you, dressed in saffron, their banners flapping in the wind. They are your cue to kneel, and your body goes without command, your bare knees scraping painfully against the flagstones as you fall.

You stare at the ground. You see from the corner of your eye your fellow servants kneeling beside you. Your hands are shaking and the scarab is crawling up your throat, its legs like pinpricks behind your tongue. You can hear His footsteps approaching. They approach, and approach, and approach: the moment lasts so long that you think perhaps you will die before He arrives.

And then, with little warning, you see Him; first His feet, and then His legs, and then His white skirt, blinding in the sun.

He is before you. He takes two more steps, stops, and stands still.

All at once there is motion. In an instant the hands of the other servants are on Him: five men, ten hands, fifty fingers on His skin, each man just as desperate to touch Him as the next. Your own hands move on their own: you need not command them. You tilt the vessel over the servants' hands, pouring the scented water on His feet. Then you reach into the vessel, hand cupped, and retrieve water of your own. Stars of anise bloom in your palm.

Your arm is guided by the Gods. You reach out and touch Him.

As you collide with Him your body hums in unearthly, mysterious pleasure. His body is perfect: His legs are like pillars, as hard to the touch as stone. His skin is smooth even as His hair is course and dark, and the petals of roses in the water roll and catch against His thick, chiseled calves. He is a God made Man, you think, He is Amon, He is Ra, He is Horus, and He is here, beneath your hands.

You pull more water from the vessel and wash His ankles, sturdy and strong, scrubbing them with your fingernails and the herbs in the water. Then, your fingers sliding between the hands of the other servants, you wash the arches of His feet, His heels, and the soft and vulnerable skin between His perfect toes.

You want to kiss them. You want to show Him that honor, to take His feet in your mouth and worship Him. The urge is sudden and swift, and on the tail of that desire comes another, greater, darker: to kiss the scepter beneath His skirts, the sword that commands the waters, the spear that shakes your thighs. You are so close to Him you can smell it, its thick and heavy scent from between His legs, urine and sweat and skin.

Your mouth prickles. Your tongue is flooded with saliva. You imagine His pale palm, hanging now against His side, on the back of your head, pulling your mouth towards His body.

Sweet, dizzy, the water you pour splashes across the sandstone: it washes against your knees, little waves hot against your skin, and soaks the pleats of your skirt that trail against the ground.

You can feel the presence of the Gods. They are cold and hard and They are looking upon you, watching you serve Him. Their gazes are like the lines of the most skilled scribes, solid and straight and unmistakable, and your Ka shudders, swells, grows.

The other servants do not dare to look up; their eyes are trained on their task, on His elegant feet beneath their hands. But under the scrutiny of the Gods you are emboldened. You know, as you know the rise of the river, as you know the rise of the moon, that must see the face of your Pharaoh on this day. You must know Him, as Amon-Ra knows every truth, as He knows our every thought, as He breathes in every place. You must know Him or you must die, a small and painful death every day for the rest of eternity.

You do not think about it for one moment more. The Gods take your chin in Their cold fingers, tilt it up, and train your gaze upon Him.

He is staring out at the path that awaits Him. His face is hard like a statue. His eyes are small and dark, lined with kohl and color and shadow. His lips are soft and His features are youthful; indeed, He looks half His age, too timeless to comprehend.

He's young and beautiful and magnificent and impenetrable and as you watch Him you realize you are falling down a slow spiral, a gradual descent through time and death into an endless pit of dreams. You have seen Him, and know that His face is known even as His name is hidden. 

You realize, staring at the sharp line of His jaw, that you do not remember how you got here.

As if on cue, He inclines His head towards you. His black eyes find yours, and in them is something familiar: something human, something recognizable. Your heart seizes within your chest.

His lips part. His eyes narrow. He moves His mouth and then He speaks, silently, your name: a name that is impossible, a name that is unlucky, a name you should not have.

 _Dongwoo,_ He says.

A wind comes, softly and swiftly through the air between you and you feel His presence in your mind, you know He is listening. He is inside you. He is listening as Amon-Ra listens, as He knows every truth and breathes in every place. He is the God of Egypt, Good and Great. He is your God. He is your King. He is yours.

 _I am yours_ , your fingers say as they flutter over His toes, as your eyes stare into the Sun, _I am yours_. Yes. He is the Light on Earth. He is the Son of the sun and the Son of the sky. He is the Son of Ra, the Son of Amon, and the Son of Osiris. He is Horus, He is Horus, He is the Great God and you are His tool, you are His servant, you are His vessel to fill as He pleases. You close your eyes. You try to remember the prayers but they do not come, and your Ka babbles in devotion, speaking to Him, worshiping Him, as He dwells in your thoughts. _I am yours, I am yours, I am yours. I will wash Your feet, I will serve Your body, I will build Your tomb, I will hold Your shield, I will swim Your river, I will row Your skiff, I will bend before Your sword and Your flail. I will be Your cave, Your chasm, Your cemetery, Your gully. I will be Your market, Your harbor, Your room, Your sarcophagus. I will be anything You desire. Your name is Horus, Your name is Amon, Your name is hidden. You are hidden. Your name is—_

And then the Pharaoh speaks again, His words echoing in your mind as if spoken underwater.

 _Dongwoo,_ He says. _Wait for me. I will know you again, in time._

White. Sudden sunlight. His towering shadow is gone, and where His body once was under your hands there is left only the burning ghost of His presence.

You watch as the God walks away from you: down the pathway to His waiting palanquin. You watch as His body, an outline, barely-there, paper in the wind, obscured by heat haze, climbs into His throne.

You stand, knees shaking, heart racing, fingers trembling, cock throbbing between your legs. The palanquin is lifted and turns towards the city. The crowd turns with Him, a flock of birds turning as one into the wind. They move out of the courtyard, slow and slow and slow, and only the priests are left behind: the priests, the palace guards, and you.

The rays of the sun are on you again, pushing you down. You are powerless to resist, and your knees buckle; the light bends you over, puts your face to the stone, now damp with the water from your vessel. You see light and colors behind your eyelids; you smell the dust and spice and honey and perfume of Him. You know you will smell it for the rest of your life.

The sun holds your face to the ground. You press your lips to the place where He has stood.

When you close your eyes, you can feel Him burning inside you.

You wonder when next you will wake.


End file.
